Jul 28, 2010 04:35 PM
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Thomas Cruise Mapother IV(pronounced /'t?m?s'kru?z'me?p?r/; born July 3, 1962), better known by his screen name of Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and won three Golden Globe Awards. His first leading role was the 1983 film Risky Business, [1] which has been described as "A Generation X classic, and a career-maker" for the actor.[2] After playing the role of a heroic naval pilot in the popular and financially successful 1986 film Top Gun, Cruise continued in this vein, playing a secret agent in a series of Mission: Impossible action films in the 1990s and 2000s. In addition to these heroic roles, he has starred in many other successful films such as Jerry Maguire(1996), Vanilla Sky(2001), Minority Report(2002), The Last Samurai(2003), Collateral(2004) and War of the Worlds(2005).
In 2005, the Hollywood journalist, Edward Jay Epstein argued that Cruise is one of the few producers(the others being George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Jerry Bruckheimer) who are able to guarantee the success of a billion-dollar movie franchise.[3] Since 2005, Cruise and Paula Wagner have been in charge of the United Artists film studio, [4] with Cruise as producer and star and Wagner as the chief executive. Cruise is also known for his controversial support of and adherence to the Church of Scientology
Cruise was born in Syracuse, New York, [6] the son of Mary Lee(née Pfeiffer), a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer.[7] Cruise's surname originates from his great-grandfather, Thomas Cruise O'Mara, who was adopted by a Welsh immigrant and renamed "Thomas Cruise Mapother".[8][9][10] Cruise is of German, Irish, and English ancestry.[11] His oldest sister, Lee Anne, was born in his parents' native Louisville, Kentucky, while his older sister Marian was born in Syracuse, as were Tom and his younger sister, Cass.[12]
Cruise attended Robert Hopkins Public School for grades three, four, and five. The Mapother family then moved to the suburb of Beacon Hill, in Ottawa, Ontario, so Cruise's father could take a position as a defence consultant with the Canadian Armed Forces. There, Cruise completed grade six at Henry Munro Middle School, part of the Carleton Board of Education, [13] where he was active in athletics, playing floor hockey almost every night, showing himself to be a ruthless player, and eventually chipping his front tooth. In the game British bulldogs, he then lost his newly capped tooth and hurt his knee.[14] Henry Munro was also where Cruise became involved in drama, under the tutelage of George Steinburg.[15] The first play he participated in was called IT, in which Cruise won the co-lead with Michael de Waal, one playing "Evil", the other playing "Good." The play met much acclaim, and toured with five other classmates to various schools around the Ottawa area, even being filmed at the local Ottawa TV station.[16]
When Cruise was twelve, his mother left his father, taking Cruise and his sister Lee Anne with her.[17]
In all, Cruise attended eight elementary schools and three high schools. He briefly attended a Franciscan seminary in Cincinnati(on a church scholarship) and aspired to become a Catholic priest. In his senior year, he played football for the varsity team as a linebacker, but he was cut from the squad after getting caught drinking beer before a game.[18]
Cruise said that he was bullied in school, and by his father who he said was "a merchant of chaos", and that he learned early on that his father was – and, by extension, some people were – not to be trusted: "I knew from being around my father that not everyone means me well."
Cruise first appeared in supporting roles the 1981 films Endless Love and Taps, the latter in which he played a crazed military school student. His first starring role was in the 1983 comedy Losin' It. That same year he appeared in All the Right Moves and Risky Business, which has been described as "A Generation-X classic, and a career-maker for Tom Cruise", [2] and which along with 1986's Top Gun, cemented his status as a star.
Cruise followed up Top Gun with The Color of Money, which came out the same year, and which paired him with Academy Award-winner Paul Newman. 1988 saw him star in Cocktail, which earned him a nomination for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor. Later that year he starred with Academy Award-winner Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, which won the Academy Award for Best Film and Cruise the Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor. Crusie finished the decade by portraying real-life paralyzed Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic in 1989's Born on the Fourth of July, in which earned him a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama, the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor, the People's Choice Award for Favorite Motion Picture Actor, a nomination for BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and Cruise's first Best Actor Academy Award nomination.
In 1994, Cruise starred along with Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas and Christian Slater in Neil Jordan's Interview with the Vampire, a gothic drama/horror film that was based on Anne Rice's best-selling novel. The film was well received, although Rice was initially quite outspoken in her criticism of Cruise having been cast in the film, as Julian Sands was her first choice. Upon seeing the film however, she paid$7, 740 for a two-page ad in Daily Variety praising his performance and apologizing for her previous doubts about him.
